How The Secret Got Me A Dinner Reservation
As much as I've bemoaned The Secret and it's heretofore unbelievable existence, on Friday I asked, I believed, and let me tell you, did I ever receive!
In case you've never heard of it, I like to follow a little blog called Eater, and Eater likes to follow the ins and outs of the Manhattan dining experience. Every Friday, Eater runs a wonderful contest called the "Friday Resy Giveaway!!" which I love for both the excessive use of exclamation points and the word "giveaway." Through unknown methods (they probably just have the foresight to call a few months in advance), Eater manages to procure a desperately sought-after reservation at some Manhattan restaurant de jour, which they then give away to the most deserving reader. The reservation up for grabs last Friday was an 8:30, table for 2, at uber-foodspot Allen and Delancey.
Now, let me clarify a little something. I've never won a thing in my life, and that's probably because I've always been too lazy to even try to win anything. Until now.
I took a few moments, shot off a three line email and I waited.
And that's when it happened. As soon as I'd hit send, I knew, I just knew that I was going to win the resy. Now maybe this happens to people who try to win things all the time. Maybe that's the natural reaction -- the excitement about the possibility of winning somehow transforms into an un-doubtable certainty. I don't know what it was, but I'm going to go ahead and chalk this up to the "believe" part of The Secret.
Now, you know the rest of the story. I asked, I believed, and therefore, apparently, I received. At 5:05pm, I received an email alerting me that the resy was all mine and giving me all the necessary information (pseudonym, fake cellphone number, etc).
And here's where we get to the good part. As my winning e-mail will attest, I love food more than life itself. I really do. And if, according to Roget's Thesaurus, food is "that which sustains the mind or spirit," let me tell you, was I ever spirituality sustained on Friday night.
If I may, I'm going to spend a few lines worshiping at the altar of Neil Ferguson, because the food was spectacular. I would go back to Allen & Delancey for the bread alone. Two rolls are dutifully dolled out with each meal (although I think we jumped the gun by spying them on a neighboring plate and immediately accosting the busboy for some -- a faux pas, perhaps?) One, a crunchy, buttery, almond-shaped French roll; the other, a perfectly spherical, bacon-greased, sage bun that literally melted in my mouth. We asked for seconds. (Another faux pas? I'm OK with it.)
The service was the most comfortable, friendly service I've had in a while, and it beat out Market Table for my number one "fancy-food (read: muy expensive-o) place where the service makes you feel like you pop in everyday for a casual bite to eat." Everyone seemed to be taking the whole "do unto others" adage entirely to heart, and I've haven't felt that cozy trying to decide between $22 appetizers in a while.
As usual, my boyfriend and I switched gender roles for dinner. I ordered the duck foie gras terrine (served with something akin to a rhubarb puree, and a perfectly placed, itty-bitty honeycomb nestled on top) and the veal saltimbocca. He ordered the crab ravioli and the Tasmanian sea trout (which I spent the rest of the weekend calling South African sea trout, for no apparent reason). And while I want to go into every indulgent detail of our three-course meal (which included a wonderfully playful dessert of "Sweet Cream French Toast" and some delicious home-made caramels served with the bill, of which I just remembered I saved one...), I won't, because this post is supposed to be about spirituality and not food, and I'm far too lazy to take the literary-out and describe everything in spiritual metaphor. In any case, that's already been done. This morning. Also: food writing is hard and I'm running out of over-used adjectives.
What I do want to say is that even if Roget's food definition is bogus, I would argue from here to kingdom-come that food and eating is by definition spiritual. Like sex, it's the most basic of human needs. It's carnal, it's visceral, it employs and explodes all your senses, and if anything, it showcases impeccably the nuances of the human body and soul (or tastebuds, depending on how you look at it.) Pleasure itself is an entirely underrated spiritual act -- so why not pleasure derived from food? (Food beats out drugs any day of the week.)
In the spirit of Church (and in the spirit of things being far too long), it seems appropriate (and about time!) I give thanks. So: Thank you gods, God, the universe, Eater, The Secret, and Allen & Delancey for my Friday evening gastronomical spiritual awakening. But really, thank you Nick for paying for it, and ultimately thank you Shin Ramyun Noodles for being so deliciously terrible for me that the good samaritan Eater blog editors had no choice but to stage a food intervention. I needed it.
I will forever sing all of your praises. That is, until I manage to ask, believe, receive my way into reservations and a paid-for dinner at Le Bernardin.
Just thought I'd throw that out there.
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nevermind
excellent description....my mouth is watering.....perhaps you should be a restaurant critic as well....that was a glowing endorsment. They should feed you free every Friday night for the rest of your life.
Can someone send this book to the people in Iraq and Africa? They're really suffering but if they only read "The Secret" and used positive thinking and just "believe" that their lives will be better than their lives really will improve!
There are people in every country that do well and prosper. Is this just an accident, quirk of fate, pure luck, or is something else in play?
The Secret, as with every other known religion out there, contains deep truths. The problem, however, is that these truths are buried in mounds of bullshit, which only makes reasonable people turn away or scoff. They're used to manipulate and control, or to perpetuate fear, or in the Secret's case, to facilitate greed.
For the geniuses who laugh at the Secret, do you not believe that consciousness creates reality? Read some basic quantum physics if you can't wrap you head around that.
If you really wanna know the truth, and what the Secret fails to communicate properly, go to DivineCosmos.com and spend the next, like, two months reading and trying to understand everything.
You would be beter rewarded by listening to "The Skeptics Guide to the Universe" podcast. And taking a physics course. And stop believing in magic other than as a source of entertainment.
BTW, if you think "quantum physics" provides any support for "the Secret" you're mistaken. But feel free to keep wishing for what you want. Meanwhile, rational people will continue to work for what they want. Guess which group is more likely to achieve their goals and be happy.
Rational people?
How 'bout Avtar Singh? Here's his bio: "He has Doctor of Science and Master of Science degrees in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Earlier, he obtained his Bachelor of Engineering (Honors) degree from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India"
Do you need to be rational to go to MIT, I dunno?
How 'bout Pythagoras? Ever hear of him? Ya know: the a-squared plus b-squared guy? Ya think that takes rationality?
What about astrophysicist Bernard Haisch? Is astrophysics a rational science?
Or this fuckin idiot, Fritjof Capra: "After receiving his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Vienna in 1966, Capra did research in particle physics at the University of Paris (1966-68), the University of California at Santa Cruz (1968-70), the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (1970), Imperial College, University of London (1971-74), and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory at the University of California (1975-88). He also taught at U.C. Santa Cruz, U.C. Berkeley, and San Francisco State University."
Funny, they all support my basic point. I wonder if they've ever taken any physics classes.
If you think we're all just machines, then again, I suggest you educate yourself because that's a shitty way to think.
My friend, I eagerly await you rational response.
Peace
Somehow I wonder if people aren't taking this a tad too seriously.
While not compared to Verena's use of the Secret, the other day I was driving in my convertible when I spied a Burger Joint up ahead.
I believed it could happen and next you know...I had a slushy in my hand and a happy brain freeze.
Thanks Secret!
The Secret was the most silly thing I've seen since "What the Bleep Do We Know"
They are modern forms of religion, in the sense that, yes well they don't make sense but then you must have FAITH
Today, I asked the universe for a delicious meal, and I got it BECAUSE I GOT OFF MY TUSH AND MADE IT
But no one wants to hear that they have to work for something...they just want to ask for and receive
The Chaser's War on Everything - The Secret (one of the best shows produced lately)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usbNJMUZSwo
I'll just throw in another series of words and leave it at that:
"We overvalue the shreds of evidence that support our preferred outcome, and ignore the facts we aren't looking for."
Heh heh, that's a funny clip.
On a serious note: in the first excerpt they show from the DVD of 'The Secret' do you notice that the woman visualizes a man giving her a necklace and then *poof* a man DOES give her a necklace (thus proving the Secret works). Maybe if the woman didn't waste money buying books and DVD's like the Secret then she could afford to BUY her own necklace herself??
Don't. Do. That. That Secret bullcrap has no place in a world so full of death and hatred. I want the Iraq war to end. If I just " believe" hard enough, will it? Your lovely meal at a posh restaurant is something that people in Iraq (say, for instance, children with their limbs blown off by not-so-smart bombs) couldn't even conceive of, let alone experience. The Secret is full of shit.
You seem to think that the world is only a place of death and hatred. This is your perspective and you are entitled to it. However, believe it or not, there is great beauty and joy if you are only willing to let it in.
Blasphemy!
Reminds me of a comic strip by Nicolas Gurewitch.
Boy wants dog, says he'd sell his soul for a puppy. Last panel shows buy chained in Hell,
fires all around and pitchforks prodding, puppy barking at his heels.
Read a column by a food writer a while back, who said that the best meals are not just phenomenal food but phenomenal food combined with good company and when, where in your life it happens. His favorite was a meal with then girlfriend, now wife. One of my favorites was a fresh pasta meal when I was really hungry after a day spent cross-country skiing. Food never tasted so good.
On the Secret, I am dubious. If you're living in say, The Congo, will believing for peace, a decent job and steady food supply really work?? I think sometimes belief alone will not bring you you're heart's desire.
Verena's a hottie.
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